>> schieffer: today on "face the nation," are we on the right track in the war on terrorism and can the senate majority leader survive an insensitive remark about barack obama's race? a new book suggests that senate majority leader harry reid fought thought barack obama's candidacy would be helped because he was, quote, light skinned and had no negro dialect unless he wanted to have one. at a time when democrats are already having their problems, what will be the impact of that? and the president tells the intelligence bureaucracy to shape up after the near catastrophe on the flight to detroit. where does the war on terror go from here? those are the questions for dianne feinstein, the democratic chairman of the senate intelligence committee, and peter hoekstra, the

ranking republican on the house intelligence committee. we'll bring in peter baker of the "new york times" and our chief legal correspondent jan crawford for analysis. and i'll have a final word on man's best teacher. dogs. but first trouble in the senate and the war on terror. on "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs "face the nation" with cbs news chief washington correspondent bob schieffer. and now from washington, bob schieffer. >> schieffer: good morning again. washington has been fixated on the war on terror, but yesterday one of those weird stories cropped up that set washington on its ear. a new book claim bing by mark halpern and john hidealman reports that during the campaign last year senate majority harry reid was telling people privately that barack obama's campaign would

be helped because he was, quote, a light-skinned african- american with no negro dialect unless he wanted to have one." reed spent all day yesterday apologizing to the president who said he accepted the apology and to a score of black politicians and leaders. but the episode does recall a very similar incident when then republican leader trent lott said that he had the country elected segregationist strom thurmond we wouldn't have had so many problems. that caused such a furor you'll recall that lott had to resign his leadership post. senator feinstein who is in california this morning, i have to start with that. is this going to have the same impact on harry reid? should he resign? >> i don't think so. first of all, all of us are imperfect. clearly this was a mistake. clearly the leader misspoke. he has also apologized. he's not apologized to the president. i think he's apologized to all the black leadership that he

could reach. so the president has accepted the apology. and it would seem to me that the matter should be closed. >> schieffer: michael steelee said had a republican said this about a democrat, democrats would be all adither. he today called for senator reed to step aside. you don't agree? >> well, let me respond to that. in the first place when trent lott had a somewhat similar situation, i saw no democrats jumping out there and condemning senator lott. i know senator lott. i happen to be very fond of him. he made a mistake. there was no question about that. he apologized for it. i know of no statement by any democratic senator criticizing senator lott. >> schieffer: congressman hoekstra you of course are a republican. when your party chairman says that, already some people are saying he probably should have just kept his mouth shut and

let this play out because when you step in front of someone who is sort of in front of a firing squad that can be a tactical mistake. what do you think? >> i think clearly this will be an issue that the democrats are going to have to deal with internally as to whether these kinds of statements... they believe these kinds of statements are appropriate from their leader in the senate. then it becomes a personal issue for senator reed. does he believe that with this on his record he should still maintain his position as a leader in the senate. it is a democrat issue. it is a personal issue. republicans ought to stand on the side lines and let the democrats work through this process. >> schieffer: all right. let's turn to this whole week that we've just been through. that is the terrorism threat. the big thing that happened. the president's response this week. senator feinstein, did the president go for enough? what needs to happen now? >> well, the senate select committee on intelligence is doing a review of the situation and will issue a

report with findings and recommendations. we hope to have the staff work done by the 21st. we'll have our first hearing on this january 21. i think there are a number of things. one, so much intelligence comes in today. i've been watching this and also in other instances where there are missed opportunities because intelligence isn't transmitted properly and it results either in death of our people or the absence of appropriate action. so to improve the technology so that certain things as warnings jump out of this huge flow of intelligence. secondly the no-fly list. and i'm delighted that the president is taking action on this. if you read the criteria to go on the no-fly list, it takes a philadelphia lawyer to interpret it. it should be simplified.

if you have reasonable suspicious... suspicion that an individual is connected to terrorism or a terrorist, bingo, they go on the no-fly list. there's a reason. the no-fly list is our ability to protect and defend our nation. secondly, our visa revocation system. his visa should have been immediately revoked and it wasn't. so the question comes why and what we can do. i think these are three things that can be... that should be looked at right away. >> schieffer: i want just to underline what you just said about getting on this no-fly list. i mean i agree with you. i think it would be easier to get into the pentagon tank where they keep the secret war plans than it would be perhaps to get on the no-fly list. i'm just going to read a little of the language that this constitutes where somebody gets on it or not. must meet the reasonable suspicion stand stand or to

review. reasonable suspicion requires articulate facts which takes together rational inferences warrants a determination that an individual is known or is suspected to be or is engaged in conduct constitutesing... on and on and on. i won't even finish it. how can anyone in the government know what that means? >> that's right. and there's another thing. when this father, a respected nigerian family, came forward and gave information and said, look, 4 i'm worried about my son. he said he's never going to see me again. he's gone to yemen. i believe he's fallen in with the wrong people. that ought to be bingo. you know, you had pakistani americans coming forward. that did result in a good result because we found the five youngsters or young men in pakistan. you've had 18 somali americans go to somalia to join training.

that should be taken care of immediately. so to listen to families, i think, is very important. >> schieffer: i want to go right to congressman hoekstra on this. a lot of people are already saying that this fellow, this detroit fellow who was arrested on the detroit flight should not have been charged in a civilian court and given a lawyer. he should have been designated a military combatant and left in the hands of the military. so they could interrogate him. >> i would agree with that statement. i mean i think what the president now needs to do is the president, i think, came out last week finally said we are at war with al qaeda. recognized that. i think he has a better understanding of the threat and an appreciation for the threat that we face. not only should we now consistently charge these folks in the military court but i think the bigger issue and the senator was talking about that, what signs are missed but i think the big signs that were missed were the ones that happened and came out of fort hood. out of fort hood we identified the american-born radical

cleric in yemen. after fort hood, what did we as an intelligence and a military community do to try to find this guy either arrest him or potentially kill him. remember he has the protection of an american citizen. i think that will be the big issue as we move forward. how are we going to deal with american citizens who go rogue? the second thing that came out of yemen was that this was, you know, that the core of al qaeda on the arabian peninsula are people that have been released from get mow. ... gitmo. the president released more individuals from gitmo. the president is absolutely right. no one that he has released do we have indications that they have found their way back on the battle field but it takes a while for them to get there. we shouldn't be sending them back. >> schieffer: they've said they're not going to send anymore. the last train has left from gitmo for yemen. you have people like john mccain and lindsey graham saying we should not release people from gitmo to any country that has a al qaeda

presence. >> i think that's exactly right. up shouldn't be putting them to yemen. you shouldn't be putting them into saudi arabia. there's talk about this rehab program that they go through in saudi arabia. the results have been very, very mixed. you shouldn't be sending them back to somalia, afghanistan, pakistan. because the evidence is clear, these people are released and the number of them go back on the to the battlefield. the clear signal is when these gitmo detainees find their way back to the battlefield, they're no longer focused on the conflict in pakistan, afghanistan or iraq. just like others, they form the core of people who want to attack the united states. it's a national security homeland security issue. >> schieffer: diane fine steen, what about that, that we shouldn't release anybody to a country where there's an al qaeda presence. do you go along with that. >> i tend to agree with that actually. if you look at yemen-- and we're taking a good look at

yemen-- what you see is i think at least 24 or 28 are confirmed returns to the battlefield in yemen. there are a number of suspected. if you combine the suspected and the confirmed, the number i have is 74 detainees have gone back into the fight. i think that's bad. here's the reason. they come out of gitmo and they are heroes in this world. this world is the only world that's going to really be accepting of them. therefore, the tendency is to go back. i think the gitmo experience is not one that leads itself to rehabilitation candidly. i think it leads to.... >> schieffer: let me ask, do you think that maybe we just ought to keep gitmo open for a while and not release anybody or at least put them in some other place but not release them? >> well, i agree with those that have said that guantanamo

has really been a recruiting tool for al qaeda. that it has not been helpful to us. i think that, you know, the senate is now engaged in a huge study on the interrogation and detention of the some 33 high-value detainees. what happened to them, how were they treated? what success did the interrogation have? will the law follow? that kind of thing. we should have the report completed within the next three months or so. however, the problem is that this is very difficult. i happen to know the prison system rather well. i believe the safety of america is assured in the federal prison system. i don't worry about the safety element. >> schieffer: what you're saying here, senator feinstein, is we ought to be very, very careful about releasing anybody right now. >> i think right now until we

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the authors. what he was trying to do, he was talking to one of the authors, you know, for this book. what he was trying to do was to explain his early support for barack obama, how no one knew he had come out early for barack obama. so he actually said this during an interview for this book. now that, of course, got his advisors totally off guard. this leaked out late friday night about midnight. he spent all day yesterday, it was confirmed this morning, he made 35 different phone calls mainly to african-americans leaders trying to apologize and get himself out of this mess. >> schieffer: he did apologize to the president. that was accepted. >> that's right. i mean the president said, you know, let's just move on. i've accepted your apology. the question now is though whether or not everybody else is going to move on. obviously we saw congressman hoekstra say this is a democratic problem and a personal problem. that's the best thing that the republicans can do right now. when you have somebody exploding you don't want to become collateral damage yourself. >> schieffer: stepping in front of a firing squad. >> right. what does this mean for harry

reid who is on life support in nevada. this could pull the plug on him. what does this mean to democrats more broadly in those midterms. >> schieffer: what do you think? does this affect the president's agenda. >> we're talking about that. we're not talking about health care. i think you remember vice president biden said something similar when he was running against barack obama for president that he was the first clean, articulate african-american running. it shows a certain discomfort i think even within his own party of how to grapple with who this new president is. a guy who did sort of come out of nowhere, had only been in the senate four years before he became president. fwox in washington still trying to define his success and his place in american politics. >> schieffer: republicans are already saying i mean michael steele the chairman said he ought to step down. trent lot when he made that remark about strom thurmond that the country would have been better off had he been re-elected president. he did have to resign his

leadership post. did you get the sense that harry reid may have to leave the leadership. >> these things are always a summation of something else that is going on. trent lott had stepped down in part because his own party had grown disenchanted with him for a lot of different reasons. the white house didn't step in to support him. the question is are there enough reasons for the democrats to be unhappy with harry reid for other reasons that could undermine the support in a moment like this when he's in trouble. no sign that president obama would abandon him at this point. i think president obama needs him to focus on health care and get it through in this next month. >> i think the much bigger question is more broadly what does this mean in the midterm and for the democrats more specifically in the midterm. this on very well make the base much less enthusiastic to come out to vote. midterms are much more about the base anyway. those republican voters are very fired up. the democrats need every single vote they can get at this point. already before this happened, it looked like democrats were going to lose 4-6 seats in the senate, 20 to 30 seats in the

house. so i think... i agree. i don't see that is going to lead to reed stepping down but i think when we look forward to this upcoming election it's going to have big problems for harry reid and democrats in general. >> schieffer: let's talk about what diane fine steen just said because it seems she made news. number one we have to do something about this no-fly list. she's said that of about. get people that ought to be on the no-fly list on there which i must say i completely and totally agree with her. but she also seemed to be agreeing this morning with john mccain and lindsey graham who said we should not only be not letting people in gitmo go back to yemen but we shouldn't let them go to any country where there's an al qaeda presence. >> of course what are we going to do about guantanamo? barack obama said when he went into office he wanted that thing closed in a year. that deadline is coming up on us. obviously it won't close. congress has already passed a law saying they won't give him

any money to close it down. they refuse to give him any money to acquire a prison here to put them in. that i think is an issue he'll be grappling with all year. what's he going to do? there's about 189 detainees down there right now. it's very quickly that congress is not going to step up here and say, sure, let's shut down began tan mow and bring them here. at the end of the day that might work out pretty well for barack obama. because he can say, look, i did what i could. i said we should shut guantanamo down. congress said no. congress has spoken. let's move on. >> schieffer: when you have a liberal democrat like diane design design saying... she didn't exactly say keep it open. she said we have to be wary about letting anybody out. >> i think what was already slowing down in this process has now ground to a halt for a little while. the idea of anybody being transferred out of began tan mow in the next couple months seems very unlikely anywhere. this thompson illinois prison, you know, as an alternative, the real question then becomes, okay, are you going to have guantanamo open in

guantanamo or in illinois? because you have ultimately a lot of the same people are going to be in one place or the other. it doesn't make a difference to have them here on american soil. >> i just don't see the political will to shut that down thing down in congress. i don't see obama spending political capital to force congress to do it. >> dianne feinstein we talked this morning. hoekstra said they should have not charged this detroit bomber in a civilian court. he should have been turned over to the military and handled in that manner. do you think we will see this continue if we have another of these instances? >> bob, you know, this has obviously been such a controversial issue. we saw the former attorney general writing a piece in the wall street journal saying we lost valuable intelligence by going in and saying you're entitled to a lawyer, read your miranda rights. you know, the white house heard that. i mean my sources tell me, i spoke with several yesterday, that inside the white house

top advisors are saying we really node need to take a hard look at this. we're going to be seeing that as part of this broad review now of what the president is doing. obviously he's looking at intelligence failures but also just about the process in general. is that the right approach if this kind of thing ever happens again. >> schieffer: that's very interesting that that's what they're even wondering about in the white house. peter, i want to talk about this remarkable piece that you have coming out in next sunday's "new york times" magazine. about 9,000 words i think. you tell this... story about how a terrorism plot was... intelligence people thought it was for real. that somali group was coming across the canadian border on the day of barack obama's inauguration and planned to set off bombs on the washington mall. as late as the morning of the inauguration there were meeting... they were meeting and trying to decide what to do if a bomb went off while

the president was speaking. >> this tells you a lot about this presidency. this is the first presidency to come into office obviously in this post 9/11 sort of age of terrorism and even on the day he's taking office hair worrying about what happens if the worst happens. >> schieffer: when did they find out that this was a false report? >> i mean literally that morning as the inauguration was going on. ultimately it becomes clear. this became what they call a poison pan. one group trying to rat out another group to get the american... it tells us a lot about the nature of terrorism today. how do you find what's real and what's not? what is smoke and what is actually something you should go after? you see that again with umar farouk abdulmutallab. how much of this was something they should have put together? in hindsight everybody can rationally say this was obvious. if you look at these clues half the time things aren't always so obvious. >> one of the things that i found interesting in your piece was that a lot of the

policies that barack obama is following now were actually policies he adopted from the bush administration on terrorism. during the campaign he sort of ran against the first-term bush but as those policies were moderated, he has now adopted many of those that bush adopted in the second term. >> right. by the time president bush left office he had already shaved off some of the most, you know, extremely radical parts of the first-term counterterrorism policy. president obama kept a lot of it. he didn't give up the right to have renditions. he still has people being detained without trial. >> schieffer: it's a fascinating piece. i highly recommend it. we're out of time. we'll be back in a moment. employees everywhere are sending out an sos.

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if i did i would give them credit but a friend who knows i love dogs emailed the following which i pass along today only because it seems a nice thing to share at the beginning of the new year. it is a list of what we would learn if dogs were our teachers. such as: always run to greet loved ones when they come home. never pass the opportunity to go for a joy ride. recognize the ecstasy of fresh air and wind in your face. take naps. i do that. stretch before rising. a good plan. run, romp and play daily. thrive on attention. i do that. and let people touch you. avoid biting when a simple growl will do. on warm days lie on your back in the grass. on hot days, drink lots of water and lie in the shade. when you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body. enjoy long walks. be loyal. never pretend to be something you're not. if what you want is buried,

dig deep until you find it. when someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by, and nuzzle them gently. we'd be better off, better people if we acted more like dogs. back in a moment.

>> schieffer: that's it for this week. we'll see you right here next week on "face the nation." captioning sponsored by cbs captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org